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Friday, December 14, 2012

CPJ: Eritrea, Ethiopia rank Africa’s worst jailer of the press

(Dec 13, 2012 (PARIS, Sudan Tribune)--Eritrea and Ethiopia have respectively
become Africa’s leading jailers of journalists, according to the jailed
Journalists List of 2012 released by the US-based, Committee to Protect
Journalists (CPJ).

The number of journalists imprisoned worldwide
has reached a record high this year, with 232 reporters,
photojournalists and editors imprisoned in 27 countries.The figure above has seen a rise of 53 to that of last year and is the highest since CPJ began the survey in 1990.

The
group said it has found widespread use of anti-state charges primarily
related with terrorism, treason and subversion as most common
allegations brought against critical journalists and editors. “We
are living in an age when anti-state charges and ‘terrorist’ labels have
become the preferred means that governments use to intimidate, detain,
and imprison journalists,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon.

According
to the new survey, Turkey leads the world’s worst jailers list with 49
journalists behind bars followed by Iran and China who imprisoned 45 and
32 journalists respectively. Eritrea and Syria are ranked the
world’s fourth and fifth worst jailers who respectively jailed 28 and 15
journalists without charge or due process and holding them in secret
prisons without access to lawyers or family members.

Vietnam, Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, Uzbekistan, and Saudi Arabia were also included in the top ten foremost jailers of journalists. “Criminalizing
probing coverage of inconvenient topics violates not only international
law, but impedes the right of people around the world to gather,
disseminate, and receive independent information” added Simon.

“With a record number of journalists imprisoned around the world, the time has come to speak out,” said Simon.“We
must fight back against governments seeking to cloak their repressive
tactics under the banner of fighting terrorism; we must push for broad
legislative changes in countries where critical journalism is being
criminalized; we must stand up for all those journalists in prison and
do all in our power to secure their release; and we must ensure the
Internet itself remains an open global platform for critical expression”
he added.

The press freedom group said it has sent letters to the
governments of the countries listed in CPJ’s 2012 census expressing
serious concern over the situation.
Source: Sudan Tribune